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Well, if you want to avoid that online insult, you may have to pay up to $3,000 to secure the new “.sucks” domain.

Already Yahoo, Apple, other major brands and many smaller ones have shelled out a large fee to ensure no one else can sign up to create a website with the address apple.sucks, yahoo.sucks or other trademarks with the dot-sucks domain.

In Vancouver, Webnames.ca, the original registrar of the .ca domain has been busier than it has ever been in its 15 years in business, helping clients not only with the dot-sucks problem but with the hundreds of new generic domains that are set to go on the open market soon.

“But on the other hand they have to do this. It feels bad, it is kind of a black mark on our industry.”

Dot-sucks is one of hundreds of new generic top-level domain names being released as part of the move by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to increase choice. Top-level domain names are the highest in the web domain naming hierarchy — in vancouversun.com for example the .com is the top level domain name. ICANN is the non-profit organization that manages the global domain name system for the Internet.

Many new top-level domain names have already been released in past months and the process continues, with May 29 the final day for trademark holders to secure rights for dots sucks and a number of other top domains before they become generally available.

Usually getting a top-level domain name during this early period, dubbed the sunrise period, costs a few hundred dollars, with that fee dropping to an annual renewal fee that could be as little as $10 or $20.

However Vox Populi Registry Ltd., the Cayman Islands-registered company that won the right from ICANN to manage the dot-sucks domain, has set the price considerably higher, $2,499 US. Negris said registering a dot-sucks domain with Webnames.ca is about $3,000 in this first stage. And unlike other domain names, that fee won’t drop but rather will become the annual renewal fee for companies wanting to keep their domain. Vox Populi has a Canadian connection. According to the company’s CEO, John Bedard, his company’s lead investor is the CEO of Ottawa’s Momentous Inc.

After the May 29 deadline, anybody will be able to register a dot-sucks domain for $249 US if they want to use it for a website or $199 if the intent is simply to block others from using it. Starting next fall, Vox Populi will be offering dot-sucks domains to consumers who want to host a forum discussion website, with the domain holders offered a free, hosted website. The company expects the price for consumers will drop below $10 US.

The rollout has made trademark holders furious and ICANN is under pressure from its intellectual property constituency to put a stop to the dot-sucks registration, which that subgroup describes as a “predatory registration scheme designed to exploit trademark owners.”

Vox Populi’s Berard disagrees.

Berard said at a time when a search of the word sucks with almost brand name will turn up online results, the dot-sucks domain gives companies “an opportunity.”

“It’s just striking to me that we’re being criticized for potentially letting loose some tidal wave of criticism when in fact the Internet already supports a tidal wave of criticism,” he said. “The opportunity we are offering to corral it and to learn from it seems not to be heard and that the focus seems to be so much on price because the price is so different for other domain names, when in fact we are offering the names for a different reasons.

“We are not trying to flood the Internet with these names, we are trying to create a new space where people can say what they want to say, have confidence they will be heard and companies will have the opportunity to engage.”

Berard said he can’t release the numbers of domains that have been purchased by trademark holders although a listing on the site lists a number of names, including Canadian companies Telus Mobility, Rogers and Bell Canada.

While Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is number five among the top 10 politician names searched on dot-sucks, apparently at least so far, the domain stephenharper.sucks hasn’t been purchased. Nor have any Canadian sports teams.

Faced with the controversy, ICANN has asked the Federal Trade Commission in the United States and the Canada’s Consumer Protection and Canada’s Office of Consumer Affairs if the domain violates any laws or regulations. Asked about the request, Industry Canada emailed a “no comment,” and Berard said he hasn’t been contacted by Ottawa.

Under libel law in Canada, companies likely would have little recourse if someone registers their name with the dot-sucks domain.

“My initial reaction is that just saying Ford sucks or Dan Burnett sucks just constitutes a category in law known as mere name calling,” said Vancouver lawyer Dan Burnett, who heads Owen Bird’s Media Law Practice Group and is a past president of the Canadian Media Lawyers Association. “It doesn’t really have a meaning you can latch onto to say that’s defamatory.”

Burnett said while a company might challenge that in court, in the U.S., there would be “even less chance of there being any kind of claim.”

“In the U.S. whenever something is classified as an opinion, it is just not actionable full stop,” he said.

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